CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla./WASHINGTON Oct 2 (Reuters) - United
Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and
Boeing, on Friday said it cannot bid in a U.S. Air Force
competition to launch a GPS satellite unless it gets some relief
from a ban on use of Russian rocket engines.

ULA Chief Executive Officer Tory Bruno told reporters in
Cape Canaveral, Florida, that the company was seeking a partial
waiver on trade sanctions enacted last year that ban U.S.
military use of the Russian RD-180 engine that powers ULA's
primary workhorse Atlas 5 rocket.

The issue is now in the hands of Defense Secretary Ash
Carter, Bruno said. Without the waiver, he said, ULA could not
compete for that launch or any other new national security
launches until a new American-built engine is ready in 2019.

"That's not a viable business model," he told reporters.

Bruno said the company needed a decision to be able to
submit a bid for the GPS launch competition, the first time in
nearly a decade that launches of large U.S. military and
satellites will be opened to competition.

The Air Force earlier this year approved privately held
Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, to compete for such
launches against ULA, which has been the monopoly provider for
most Air Force satellite launches since its creation in 2006.

The Air Force issued final rules for the GPS III launch
competition on Wednesday, and bids are due Nov. 16.
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